We dug back in the On-Premise IT Roundtable archives to bring you an episode originally recorded in 2016, but incredibly prescient today. The roundtable discusses how IT companies can differentiate in an age of increasing commoditization. They look at examples like DSSD, Kaminario, and SimpliVity as ways to differentiate hardware, albeit at a considerable expense of time and resources. They then turn to software, and discuss the wave of SDS products that turned out to be features. The discussion is fascinating because many of the trends identified in this discussion have now played out in one form or another.

Bonus podcast episode! I had the privilege to talk to Matt Leib about how he got his start in IT, how the industry has changed since his Radio Shack days, and why the hybrid cloud is here to stay. It was a great conversation, enjoy the audio!

The On-Premise IT Roundtable has a bold premise for this episode: enterprise licensing models are interesting! The panel discusses why understanding licensing is vital for a modern data center as we move from CapEx to OpEx models.

Do you like bonus podcast content? How about an audio interview with podcaster, engineer, and IT pro Allison Sheridan? We had a really great conversations touching on how she got started in IT and podcasting.

Intent-based networking is the new hotness, but what does it actually mean? In this episode, the panel discusses how it differs from older SDN ideas. IBN integrates an abstraction layer and orchestration into a system that identifies a single source of truth that isn’t the network itself.

On this episode, host Stephen Foskett talks with Mark May, Howard Marks, and Keith Townsend about what makes a failed startup. Are some concepts simply too early, or are there ideas whose time simply never arrives? They look at specific examples like Auspex Systems and Coho Data.

The roundtable discusses the premise that the CLI is dead, or at least terminally ill. They look at why this is the prevailing narrative in networking and the greater IT landscape. Is the death of the CLI a forgone conclusion, or merely a framing device for moving to better processes in IT?